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<FONT FACE="Verdana">I am teaching a course on language and violence, which, of course, includes a lot of looking at naming. Mia, Greg and Daniel, may I share this with my class?<BR>
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On 02/02/2006 9:46 AM, "Mia Kalish" <MiaKalish@LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US> wrote:<BR>
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</FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT COLOR="#993366"><FONT SIZE="1"><FONT FACE="Arial">We might suggest First Nations, which also has about it the recognition that the people speaking the language where the first to occupy a particular locale, and that the dominant language is one of colonization. <BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#993366"><FONT SIZE="1"><FONT FACE="Arial">We have to be careful about minoritizing the languages in the names we choose for them (“lesser-used, disadvantaged”, as Daniel suggested) because this lowers their prestige in the eyes of people, both who use the languages and those who control the funding for documentation and revitalization efforts. <BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#993366"><FONT SIZE="1"><FONT FACE="Arial">I don’t think anyone is saying that the languages of the people who were on this continent first are “part of our national heritage”. Part of our problem here has been the establishment of the belief that the First Nations now exist only in the Smithsonian. Reports still come in about people who are surprised to find out that there still are “real, live American Indians”. <BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#993366"><FONT SIZE="1"><FONT FACE="Arial">I see the issue as one of equity. We should speak the truth, which is NOT that the country was discovered by Columbus who was the first person to see this unoccupied land, but that millions of people lived here, had for millennia, and that people from England, France and Spain came here, killed as many as they could, destroyed the buffalo which had supplied food, clothing and shelter, and spread disease by handing out blankets infected with smallpox. (The Army did this deliberately, and documents still exist that document both the intent and the action). <BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#993366"><FONT SIZE="1"><FONT FACE="Arial">So the languages are American Indian Heritage Languages, not U.S. Heritage Languages. American Indian People are independent nations, although because of the treaties, they have a complex connection with the U.S. Government. Languages are just the tip of the iceberg of a long history of Indian Agents stealing food and supplies, becoming rich in the process while the Indians died of cold and starvation. It is a long educational history of attempts to eradicate American Indian language, culture and history, replacing it with English and European ways of thinking. <BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#993366"><FONT SIZE="1"><FONT FACE="Arial">From what we see on this list, the story here is not very different from the stories in Canada, in Australia, in New Zealand, in the Soviet Union, in short, anywhere where Indigenous people lived on land that had resources someone else wanted for themselves. <BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#993366"><FONT SIZE="1"><FONT FACE="Arial">Mia<BR>
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<FONT SIZE="1"><FONT FACE="Tahoma"><B>From:</B> Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] <B>On Behalf Of </B>Cunliffe D J (Comp)<BR>
<B>Sent:</B> Thursday, February 02, 2006 2:14 AM<BR>
<B>To:</B> ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU<BR>
<B>Subject:</B> Re: [ILAT] NATIONAL: National Indigenous Languages Survey Report 2005 (fwd)<BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000080"><FONT SIZE="1"><FONT FACE="Arial">Hi All,<BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000080"><FONT SIZE="1"><FONT FACE="Arial">Greg Dickson wrote: </FONT></FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Verdana">is it just me or does the word 'heritage' make it sound like these languages are something to do with the past and therefore not so relevant in 2006. Another sign our government is not taking them seriously and waiting until they just 'go away'? <BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000080"><FONT SIZE="1"><FONT FACE="Arial">I must admit that I have some issues with “heritage” too – not so much in the “language x is part of our national heritage” context, but certainly in the “x is a heritage language” context. I tend to view “heritage language” as an American term – though I stand to be corrected on that.<BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000080"><FONT SIZE="1"><FONT FACE="Arial">Of course this is all well and good, so long as you can think of a more appropriate term, which is particularly problematic when you try to come up with umbrella terms – “regional or minority languages” anyone? How about ‘minority’, ‘lesser-used’, ‘disadvantaged', ‘threatened’, ‘endangered’, ‘indigenous’, ‘heritage’, ‘local', ‘non-state’…<BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000080"><FONT SIZE="1"><FONT FACE="Arial">Of course all of these have different connotations and precise definitions not easy – presumably when I am in England speaking English I am speaking an indigenous language, when I am speaking English in Wales…?<BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000080"><FONT SIZE="1"><FONT FACE="Arial">Be seeing you.<BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000080"><FONT SIZE="1"><FONT FACE="Arial">Daniel.<BR>
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